One thing that not many recognize is those that changed the world. Of course, desktop publishing and digital content creation are definitely not going to be recognized for changing anything. But trust me, what Adobe did for the desktop publishing market with not just their software but their technologies has changed everything. It has made workflow faster, publishing cheaper, and has made it easier. With technologies like, TrueType cross platform fonts, PDF, and Postscript, Adobe has made a lot possible. Even Quark would not have the success they have today without Adobe’s work. Apple has done the same. Back in the day (5 years ago), many were still editing with these huge rigs of equipment. Now, a filmmaker is a guy with an HD camera, a tripod (optional) and a Powerbook with Final Cut Pro. It is amazing how things have changed and how good it is because of Apple’s contributions. Of course this is what Apple is known for. They did it with the Mac, and they did it for digital media.

If you are visiting this website, I am sure you don’t even dare pick up a PC magazine while at the newsstand. You just don’t do it, but I make a point to for one reason; what are PC users talking about. To really enjoy being a Mac user, you have to know what is happening on the other side. Remember when your Mom would tell you, “think of all of the people out there that don’t have food to eat, they would love to have what you have in front of you.” Well, this is the same idea for my little monthly trip to the newsstands. Of course, I would never buy a PC magazine; in fact I am the proud reader of almost 10 Mac-Related magazines a month. It takes time, but each magazine has their great parts.

This is an "up-close" interview of Laura Burstein. She has worked with TechTV, written columns for many websites, and helped write Leo Laporte's 2003 Technology Almanac. She is extremely busy with projects, but MPG wanted to find out more about the Tech-Savvy Beauty. Read More to see the interview.

May 5th: Alex Salkev of Business Week wrote a story regarding Apple spinning off its music side of Apple into its own IPO. Now, this sounds good, and many Mac sites just picked up that part and ran with it. If you read the entire article, you will see that Alex is saying this because he thinks the iPod and iTunes music store, for that matter, will be losing market share soon as the MP3 player market is "commoditized". I don't believe this. Microsoft and others will try to do ths, but Apple has the best music jukebox, store and portable player on the market. They have high market share because they are the best.

I don't normally rant on products but i have to do a rant and a praise today. While walking across our courtyard at my high school, I was using my iPod case from Booq Bags, and I have note reviewed it yet because I wanted to use it extensively but so far things have not gone well with me and that case. Of course I will list its problems soon. So I was using that, it was attached to my pocket and my iPod was in the case. I was also using myTrendyGeek iPod protector. This keeps your iPod scratch free. I reviewed that case a while back.

Will there ever be a video iPod? My awnser is no. As cool as it would be to be able to play video's or view your pictures on your iPod it just isn't practical. As reported on MacNN there was a interview with Steve Jobs, and he said "We want it to make toast," said Jobs. "We're toying with refrigeration, too." in another quote from the interview he also said was "You can't watch a video and drive a car," he said. "We're focused on music." I think that these quotes provide evidence that there wont be a video or photo iPod anytime in the near future. But hey thats just my opinion, which everyone is entitled too.

There are two things that have not been changed since the first two version of iTunes. This is not a rant just an open call to Apple to add two features I have requested for the longest time. For one, the iTunes visualizer has not been changed since version 2. I was hoping to see a visualizer manager and SDK for developers as well as more visuals in iTunes 3. Instead there have been three major updates and yet no visualizer. I would had done without Party Shuffle if I could have had another visualizer. Sure, there are others out there but they suck. Apple makes the best ones so we want more.

April 15th: John King of the San Francisco Chronicle says in his article, calls the Apple Store in downtown SF a cube. He goes on talking about the Apple store sticks out in "one of the nation's last vibrant retail district.". Mr. King says apple, "creativity dropped a windowless box two blocks from Union Square?" This is how I feel about it. Apple is using the look of its products. I think the store is beautiful and the metal building with glowing Apple logo has a great style in that district. If you walk around downtown SF, you see old building over one hundred years old, but right next door there is the Fossil, louie vuitton, and Gucci company stores that share a futuristic look juset like the Apple store. Honestly, all of the stores in Union Square do not look classic at all. I don't know what John King was speaking of, but he obviously thinks the Apple store needs windows. Apple should release a press release claiming they have installed VirtualPC on all of their machines, and now they have a box full of windows. Take that Mr. King

I was without my iBook G4 for a few days last week, and of course my TiBook has no internet capabilities at all, so I was forced to go to a public library and use Windows XP w/ Office xp. Most of you are probably cringing right about now. I was going to be there for a while, so I set up prefs, added my email accounts to Outlook xp, and customized internet explorer to work like I wanted it to. After getting used to the command key not being beside the space bar but instead I had to use the ctrl key, I was doing pretty well with the beast. Of course I had to turn off the blue “fisher-price” version of the OS and revert to classic windows look.

America has certainly had a long history filled with tragedies, accomplishments, and power. From the very beginning of our history it seems like we have been hypocrites. We drove out the British, because of there unfair treatment of us, and then we drove out the indigenous people, repeatedly breaking treaties and cheating them out of land, because they got in the way.

Spring Break is over for many of our writers. It is time to crank of the stories, and make the site more efficient. Of course, you already know because that is a given. I bet you are wondering what we did during Spring Break. I know what I did. I went camping. Most of today’s youth goes to the beaches. They go south, east, or west and they go to the beach to drink, party, and for the first half of spring break, be totally sunburned.

Advertising is a key part of any business. How can someone purchase your product or service without knowing about it? Advertising is everywhere. Radio, TV, roadsides, the Internet, and even a logo on someone’s T-shirt all qualify as advertising. What makes it work though? What about that ad compels you to purchase the product? On TV, a company has 30 seconds to make you want their product. Even if you didn’t know you wanted it. There is a key word here, “you”. It is you they are targeting. Well, not always. If you are a male, they might be targeting your wife, or you kid. No 40 year old male will watch a twenty foot giraffe talk about Power Rangers and want to go to Toys’R’Us (well not most). If you sit a five year old kid in front of the same commercial, well that is a different story. On the other hand, show people snowboarding and surfing while drinking Mountain Dew, and that guy facing a mid-life crisis, may go after the Mountain Dew. See how it works? Of course you do. Let’s assume you know how advertising works. We won’t need to go back to this subject.

Mac users and Apple investors are happy to hear Apple notebooks being put in the hands of school kids. This means more money for Apple, and more Mac users in the long run. Those are great reasons for Apple to push the education market and try to get iBooks to all of the school kids around the world, but in most cases, kids abuse that privilege; especially when wi-fi internet access is in the mix. Most of our staff is teenagers and half of them have notebooks at school.

Sorry but I just had to share this with you all

http://homepage.mac.com/ipodlove/iMovieTheater1.html

March 22nd: An anonymous reader has sent us a way to buy one iPod, then for the next two years, keep getting and iPod every month or less. All you have to pay is 50 bucks!

"I purchased a 5gb iPod November of 2002 from CompUSA. Remember you have to buy from CompUSA, do not buy from anywhere else. I got the 2 year replacement warranty for 15% of the cost of the product. You can get this warranty on many peripherals, so just use this same idea, on any mice, keyboards, webcams, whatever. Anyway, the replacement warranty was 50 dollars. About 3 months later, my battery was not holding a charge, so I took it to CompUSA, and they gave me a 10gb. Being that the 10Gb costed the same as the 5, the credited me 299, and gave me a 10gb. I just payed 50 dollars for a new warranty.
After the 3g iPods came out, I went to compUSA, and did the same thing for a 15Gb third generation iPod. I just paid 100 dollars to pay the difference of a 399 dollar iPod, and payed the 50 dollar warranty again. Finally, when Apple had the 20 gb iPod Third generation, I did the same thing, and did not have to pay 100 dollars, just payed to renew the warranty.
In short, one year later, I have owned four iPods, and have only payed for two. This may be cheating the system, but if you iPod does not work, it is a good no questions asked way of getting it replaced. This. like i said, is trues with most peripherals at CompUSA."

The previous submission, does not reflect the views of MPG, and we do not suggest anyone do this. None of the staff or members of MPG have done this, and do not plan on doing this.

Well this is one the best little iPod movies I have seen, based on the Star Wars Pod race

Watch Now!

According to Symantec's biannual Internet Security Threat report there were 2,636 vulnerabilities disclosed last year. On average, 99 of the 220 reports per month which were classed as high severity - giving attackers increased privileges and access to more prominent targets - while 70% of all these vulnerabilities being easy to exploit.

We have had it first. First mouse, first graphical interface, first CD burners, and first inexpensive means of wireless networking. This is not to mention the fact we have the best music player, best software, best OS, and the most beautiful computers that just work. So why is it that Mac users always get pissed at Apple if they don’t release a new or updated computer every 3 months, or don’t sell an item at the price range you like. Deal with it! Apple is a company. Their sole purpose is to make money. As Mac users, we are spoiled with the best stuff, but when things don’t go our way, we automatically complain.

March 18th: (Censored for unsuitable ages)
At the gym last night, I over heard someone cursing at their MP3 player. “S**t, this piece of crap! It has never worked! Why do you keep freezing?!” After this guy stops his workout 5 times just to reset his Dell Digital Jukebox, I finally look over and say, “don’t you wish you had bought an iPod”. Ok, it was kind of rude of me, but he knew I was right. He chuckled and explained that it was a Christmas gift and he could not help what was under the tree. I let him use my iPod and he loved it. He said, even if he could only afford the 15-gigabyte iPod, or mini, he would rather carry fewer songs with him than to deal with the frustrations of his current MP3 player.
It was funny to hear John Doe explain his frustrations. After discovering I was a Mac user, and telling him that my computer never crashed and it was rated the most secure operating system in the world, he came to the realization that even if Microsoft Windows is not on it, anything a PC company makes whether it be a computer, PDA, MP3 player, or even a calculator will not work, freeze, and eventually break completely. He said, “why is it when Apple makes something it always seems to make sense and work?” This guy had obviously had it with anything a PC company makes. Maybe I helped someone switch, even though I did not make them switch, I was a person to listen while they figured out that Pcs suck and Apple computers are the way to go.
He also wished that he could use the iTunes Music Store. They have all of those exclusive tracks and he can’t buy them to listen to on his Dell Jukebox. What a shame.

In the past twenty years, big steps have been made in the enhancement to motion pictures, and how we view them. Movies, even in the eighties, looked like movies. They looked like they were not real, and this was due to quality of film, lack of technology in the post production realm, and techniques for filmmaking. Those factors made for a “not so real” picture on the big screen, but when you bought a VHS tape and brought it home, the quality was even worse, and it was two channel audio, and the aspect ration was off; it was a horrible way to view movies.

I have read each day a multitude of large news services complain about Apple computer missing their mark of selling 100 million songs in one year. Look at the date of this post, go ahead, look at it! CNBC, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, CNET! All of you look at this post and what does it say MARCH FREAKING 16TH! Apple's one year mark is not until April 28th. This gives them about six weeks to make their mark.

Windows XP SP 2 nears

The first thing it mentions is inbuilt Bluetooth support, while Windows Installer 3 will auto update all apps in your system.

Microsoft also promises to deliver smaller and more reliable patches, the web site says, and you'll be able to remove some patches too.

Apple has seeded Mac OS X 10.3.3 (7F43) to developers on Friday.

Major areas of change include Core OS, Carbon, Cocoa, Graphics and Imaginge, High Level ToolBox, Printing and USB.

I for one would welcome this addition to Office package, but I suspect it only a rumor, but if you know different

http://www.lis.fsu.edu/Prospects/ssd33_hardware_software.cfm#Mac

It must be official 'The Guardian' simply loves Apple and the iPod, no other UK national newspaper gives as many column inches to Apple and the iPod.

Therefore I just have to give them a mention.

Microsoft is set to show the beta version the Windows XP Service Pack 2.0 next week. But, while it might be a show stopper for the Las Vegas conference, the beta will not find its way into the grubby paws of us until around until April.

While Microsoft still continues to wrestle with Service Packs and the continued delays for the next Window version one cannot help wonder just where OS X will be in 2004/2005.

Lets hope Apple can really take advantage of this.

Apple has been seeding versions of Mac OS X 10.3.3 regularly to developers over last few weeks, the latest seed OS X 10.3.3 build 7F38 contained no revisions to the release notes could this mean it is close?

Microsoft's Bill Gates is suggesting that computer users should be required to buy "stamps" in order to send e-mail. "If the Postal Service delivered mail for free, our mailboxes would surely runneth over with more credit-card offers, sweepstakes entries, and supermarket fliers. That's why we get so much junk e-mail: It's essentially free to send. So Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, among others, is now suggesting that we start buying 'stamps' for e-mail."

I am a novice Macintosh user. I have a TiBook, iBook, iPod, and iSight. I like my “i” items. I received an iBook G4 just a few days ago and I ordered an iSight. Seems great, right? It is not...

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“When will we see a G5 Notebook?” floods the forums and newsgroups of Apple fanatics all over the country. When is not the question. The true question is how...

On Tuesday, January 6th, Apple introduced a new member to the iPod family; the iPod mini. The new iPod is a third smaller than the 3g iPod. It also comes in a variety of colors and holds one thousand songs...

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Sounds kind of weird, right? It is not. In fact sharing your jack is catching on all over the country. What is it?

I read an article regarding Dell and Apple’s research and development costs. This is also called R&D, for short. This article explained that....